


Down The Rabbit Hole. Of Spikes.

by StylishChocobutt



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Prompto is alone and cold, im a horrible person
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 15:35:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11443851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StylishChocobutt/pseuds/StylishChocobutt
Summary: Prompto accidentally finds himself in Pitioss, with no way back. Alone, hungry and cold, he has to traverse the hellish dungeon to escape.“Okay dude, you’ve got this. Totally got this! Just a… hundred foot drop. Don’t look down, don’t look down. Shit! Looked down!”Prompto carefully adjusted his footing on the ledge. If it could be called that. He could barely set his foot down properly because of the width; and shit, he’d totally just looked to the depths below. One more step. One more step. He could totally do this. He wasn’t a complete idiot. Just inch forward and-He slipped.





	Down The Rabbit Hole. Of Spikes.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Asidian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asidian/gifts).



> Hey folks! Asidian posted an epic fic recently about Noct getting trapped in Pitioss, and I decided to subject Prompto to the same fate in honour of that.  
> I meant for this to be a one-shot, but looks like it's gonna be a few chapters of hurt.

“Dude! That was like, totally _awesome!”_

Like, seriously. Who knew a bit of Imperial scrap from the garrison could be so damn awesome; and thank the Six for Cindy suggesting that they fix up the Regalia with it. Fix it up to fly. Freaking, _fly_! Prompto stepped out of the car onto the dusty landscape practically buzzing with energy after having spent the majority of the flight – much to Ignis’ annoyance – hanging out the window taking some sweet aerial shots with his camera. Today was turning out to be a pretty epic day, to say the least. Eventually they’d settled with landing the car in Ravatogh’s shadow, amongst the plains and just a short distance away from the road. Landing had been fun; if not absolutely terrifying with Noct of all people at the wheel. He trusted his best buddy’s driving skills. To a certain extent. Brief trips in the Star of Lucis around Insomnia had taught him that although Noct could drive fast, if he put his mind to it he could also drive safe. Flying, though? Well, his stomach had its conflictions about that despite how much his heart had urged him to take photographs. It was a conflict; yet a conflict he was willing to die for.

“Right? Even got Specs to crack a smile.” Noct quickly retorted, a small smirk on his face as he stepped out of the Regalia; immediately shielding his eyes from the bright sun and sweltering heat of the nearby mountain.

Even behind the reflection of his glasses, Ignis rolled his eyes as he freed himself from the confines of the car. “Positively terrifying would be a more apt description, I believe.”

“Yeah, whatever you say, I saw you smirking back there.”

“Perhaps you should pay more attention to keeping your eyes on the road. Or lack of?” Ignis quickly shot back, raising a hand to adjust his glasses before turning his attention to their new and dusty surroundings.

Prompto spared no time in practically skipping over to the nearest pool, camera in hand as he crouched down next to it. The light reflected perfectly off of the small ripples; likely caused by built up gas underneath. They’d already learned the hard way that most of the pools around the mountain contained the occasional natural water pillars - luckily not horrendously hot; all it had taken was Prompto standing in the wrong spot for a second too long, before he’d ended up on his arse a good few meters back, soaked from head to toe. Subsequently, he’d utterly soaked Noct too, who’d been stood with him.

Gladio had slapped him on the back and laughed for a good few hours after that.

Never again. Prompto was pretty sure Leviathan had it in for him; and Six, they hadn’t even gotten to Altissia yet.

He was so fixated on taking the shot in front of him that he barely noticed Noct approach from behind, and he definitely didn’t notice how quiet the prince was trying to be. Or how Ignis and Gladio had both stopped talking and turned their attention to the two younger members of the party.

What he did notice was the camera being plucked from his hands.

What he also noticed was the sudden foot to his back.

What he really noticed was the water coming up to meet him, fast.

_Splash!_

Prompto blinked. Now staring down at his reflection in the shifting pool beneath him, of which he now was in the middle of; hands and knees drenched from where he’d tried to save himself from an utter drenching at the last minute. It hadn’t worked much. He was soaked. Not ‘a quick shower’ soaked, but ‘Ramuh decided to open the heavens’ soaked.

Behind him, he heard Noct laugh.

“Oh Six- Prom, that was perfect.”

Having recovered enough from the initial shot, he had the chance to turn and glance over his shoulder, where not one, but three of his companions stood laughing at the electronic device in Noctis’ hands.

“Dude! You didn’t!”

“Oh, I did.”

Yep, all three of them were chuckling away at what was more than likely a terrible shot of Prompto plummeting head first into the pool, legs splayed and everything in his panic. Gladio managed to pull himself together first, turning his attention back to Prompto as the blond pulled himself up to his feet.

“Uh oh, better get running, your highness.” The Shield smirked, helpfully grabbing the camera from the prince’s hands.

For a moment Noct was too absorbed in the fact his prize had been taken from him. “Huh, what? Why?- Oh.”

Realisation dawned on his expression as he looked over to meet his friend’s eyes. There was no way in hell Prompto was letting Noct get away with that one. I mean sure, maybe he’d deserved it for getting Noct soaked the previous day with the water spray, and maybe he’d laughed a little too much at the prince looking like a drowned voretooth, and maybe – just maybe – he’d accidentally caught the whole thing on camera. And kept it.

“Er, Prom. You realise targeting your king is treason, right?” Noct suggested, taking a step back with the usual smirk on his expression.

“Only if he’s caught.” Ignis helpfully supplied, already beginning to head towards the haven. Gladio soon followed, chuckling away at the device in his hands; more than likely at the badly shot photo.

Prompto hoped it was badly taken. Noct didn’t exactly have a reputation for taking photos without the blur of his finger somewhere in the frame.

“Noooct.” Prompto grinned, already stepping out of the depths of the pool and back to where he’d previously been crouched. “Buddy.”

Noct held both hands up in surrender. “Okay, let’s just stop. Think back to all the times I- Shit, Prom!”

Half way through his sentence, the prince was forced to take a couple of even faster steps back as Prompto crouched to splash water from the pool over him. He missed, but only just. Still, he wasn’t about to sit around and wait for Noctis to apologise. Nope, he had a better idea. The only way there was going to be justice in the world was if Noct ended up in that pool too.

“Dude! You totally got me soaked! Don’t think you’re staying dry for the rest of the evening! That’s like, super unfair, man!”

If Prompto had the ability to summon a super-soaker water pistol from the armiger, he would have. Alas, Ignis had specifically told the pair that it wasn’t their personal storage cupboard, and thus the items from Galdin Quay had been left behind at Hammerhead. Suddenly he was regretting giving into the advisor so easily. As it was, he’d have to drag Noct into the pool himself. And six, he was determined to try.

Noct must have seen that in his expression, because with a laugh, the prince turned on his heel and made a run for it.

“Have to catch me first!” He yelled back; and Prompto mentally rolled his eyes. Which one of them was the runner, again?

With that thought, he set off in a sprint after Noct, making sure to keep his breathing under check, his pace even, to avoid any of the rookie mistakes that would have him gasping for breath in under five minutes flat. Noct, on the other hand, was just legging it – leaving Prompto temporarily in the dust.

“Dude, get back here!” Prompto yelled; momentarily forgetting that yelling in the open world was a big no-no, and could practically feel Ignis’ rolling his eyes from the haven.

Speaking of the haven…

Prompto stopped, turning on his heel before taking in his new and very foreign surroundings.

Uh oh, way’ta go dude, you’re lost.

No, not lost. Juuust slightly off the path is all. Totally, not lost at all.

It took about ten minutes of aimless wandering and complete denial for it to finally set in that he had absolutely no idea where camp was. Or which direction Noct had gone in for that matter: though he had no doubt someone must have noticed them both missing by now. Unless Noct had circled back to camp, thinking Prompto would be there. Okay. Don’t panic. Totally have this under control.

Besides, on the bright side, there weren’t that many big nasties out here in the middle of nowhere.

So, there was little left to do – other than panic, and that wouldn’t be street smart, as Iggy would say – than stuff his hands in his pockets, pick a direction, and walk. Surely, he’d hit some kind of road or landmark eventually? I mean sure, they’d flown in by super-awesome-empire’d up Regalia, but there had to be a road somewhere, right?

Grabbing his phone from his pocket, he powered the screen on. It was a miracle the water from earlier hadn’t damaged it.

What wasn’t a miracle however, was the empty bar at the top of the screen screaming ‘no signal’ at him.

Ah.

“Okay!” Prompto spoke; more than aware he was the only one stood in this Eos-forsakened wasteland. “Just gotta’ get back Prom, just gotta’ get back before night falls because dude, that would suck.” He laughed sheepishly, warily eyeing the darkening sky whilst rubbing the back of his neck. He had a few hours at least before the sun was going to dip behind Mount Ravatogh.

With his phone in hand, he carried on along the dusty terrain, occasionally snapping the odd photograph of a strangely shaped rock or interesting looking plant – though those were few and far between apparently.

He wasn’t panicking.

He _totally_ wasn’t panicking.

As expected, night eventually began to descend on the rocky landscape and the blond was no closer to finding the haven than he had been two hours prior; beginning to feel the occasional twist and rumble of his stomach, having neglected to bring any kind of food in his rush to get revenge on Noct. With the night, came the horrible chill too – the heat of the day sifting away and dropping into outright freezing temperatures that had him shivering; dressed in no more than his vest and jeans – which were still somewhat damp from his earlier dip in the pool.

Flicking the switch on his torch, he clipped it carefully to his vest and continued to traverse the unforgiving – and now totally sub-zero – landscape, doing his best to distract himself from shifting shadows by humming an incredibly annoying RPG tune from a game he’d downloaded onto his phone a week or so back. It wasn’t quite as good as King’s Knight, but it passed the time and kept his hands busy. Which was a Six-send in Ignis’ opinion, as he’d taken to slapping Prompto’s hands away from the radio in the Regalia. Apparently the blond had a habit of being indecisive.  
Speaking of Six-sends…

Prompto angled his torch to his left, noting a new path that headed up into the mountains; and at the end? Was that a building? Oh Six, he hoped it was a building! Buildings meant civilisation, right?

He didn’t run up that incline frantically.

Okay,

Maybe he did a little.

Stumbling to the top, he felt his face fall immediately upon setting his sights on what appeared to be ruins. Old ruins. Like, super old ruins. The sort you’d read about in museums then forget ten minutes later. Tentatively stepping around the concrete structure – and hopping over a small gap, because whoever designed this architecture clearly thought that one through – he made his way around the back of the building, humming to himself to fill the eerie silence.

He _probably_ shouldn’t have squeezed himself through the bars of a gate to get a closer look.

He _probably_ shouldn’t have edged towards the red, shiny circular plate.

He _probably_ shouldn’t have reached for his phone to take a photo of it.

You’d think Costlemark would have taught him a lesson.

Nope, those were exactly the things Prompto found himself doing.

So it really,

 _Really_ ,

Shouldn’t have been a surprise when the ground suddenly shifted underneath him, and the platform of which he was stood on began to descend into the depths.

“No no no no! Stop!” Roughly shoving his phone back into his pocket, Prompto found himself crouching – not cowering, he wouldn’t admit that – with his arms over his head, eyes tight shut as images of the possible hell he was about to end up in, likely with multitudes of daemons, flitted through his head.

What sort of idiot walked into a damn dungeon alone, with no curatives, or any phone signal?

Prompto, that’s who.

The lift of death – he’d mentally dubbed it that now – ground to a halt with a click, leaving the blond to hesitantly push himself to his feet and take in his new surroundings. First problem: there was no way back up. Making his way around the edge of the platform and pressing the walls did nothing. It wasn’t going to move again. Because, why would it? That would just be far too easy – providing an exit to a creepy ass dungeon.

“Ookay.. It’s just some creepy ruins. Creepy ruins totally have exits. Just gotta’ find it, stay calm and.. Yeah, I’ve got this.”

Prompto turned around, more than ready to face whatever the hell this place was going to throw at him-

And came face to face with spikes.

Red.

Hot.

 _Spikes_.

Who the Ifrit designed this place?! Edging forward to where the two panels of spikes moved up and down, he could practically feel the heat radiating off of them. Uh. No. No no no. This wasn’t happening. Grabbing his phone from his pocket and checking the signal, he felt his heart drop seeing the empty bars. Oh Six, he was going to die down here. Alone, starving. What a way to go.

No. Noct wouldn’t just sit around and wait for a spikey death, so neither was he. Securing his phone back into his pocket, Prompto waited as one of the panels rose up towards the ceiling, before ducking beneath it and emerging the other side. Letting out the breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding, he made his way up the tiled slope and into the following room.

So far, so good.

Just keep it together, Prom.

The new room was dark. Like, pitch-black daemons lurking in the shadows level of dark. Yet, as far as he could hear, there weren’t any tell-tale signs of the usual suspects, only the grinding of stone on stone. The steps before him that led down into the room held a large stone ball and were covered in-

Oh shit, was that blood?

Okay, he was going to pretend it wasn’t blood.

Just don’t look at it.

Ahead of that was a large door, but as far as he could see, no way of opening it. Ignis would know how to, he mused absently, already making his way to the source of the grinding sound. Just in case, he carefully tried to tug his gun out from subspace, feeling the weight of it for a split second in his hand before disappearing into nothingness. Oh, sweet. Now he was hungry, cold, and weaponless.

It turned out the grinding originated from a wall moving backwards and forwards; like out of those cheesy as hell horror movies Noct and him had watched back in highschool. This one occasionally revealed a gap on the other side, which Prompto sprinted for the moment he had the chance.

Okay. He could do this. Totally had this under control.

Turning the corner, he mentally swore at his own optimism. The path ahead was clear enough – asides from terrifying gaps that seemed to drop down into the abyss below.

Just don’t look down. Simple, right?

 _Wrong_.

He’d looked.

Ugh, his stomach flipped at the idea of falling down that gap.

“Dude, you’ve got this. Just need to jump, it’s uh, not even that far. You’ve jumped further, like in that uh, that sports day. Yeah, back from-“

And, distracting himself with a terrible memory, he launched himself forward; clearing the gap and just about avoiding crash landing the other side. Score.

Doing that a second time was a lot easier than the first and left him quite proud of himself. Piece of cake.

Another slope and oh-

He came face to face with a creepy ass glowing rock. As if this place needed to get any weirder. Near this rock, he felt the connection to Noct’s subspace, and finally pulled his gun free from it. Okay, so he could summon his weapons next to creepy rock faces. Good to know. Placing the weapon in his grip, he held it up and fired.

The rock vanished, leaving the next path open.

“Hah! Score! Totally got this.”

Up another couple of slopes, and he found himself stood at the next challenge. More jumping. Jumping he could do. Totally. Even if his knees felt like they were shaking; he had this. Backing up slightly, Prompto launched himself at the platform ahead, his left foot striking it as he landed before he felt himself falling backwards at a misjudged angle.

No no no!

Scrambling wildly, he felt the stone scrape against his chest as he desperately latched onto it, legs dangling into the darkness below as he scraped his fingers against the stone; trying to find leverage to pull himself up with. It took a moment, but eventually he was up and over it, chest heaving from the impact and realisation that he’d nearly dropped.

He was going to die here.

No doubt about it.

It took several minutes for him to bite down the rising nausea from that near-death experience, but he knew damn well that if he was going to get out of here – and that was a big if – then he’d have to keep moving.

Manoeuvring his way to the opposite wall, and along the railings was easy enough. What wasn’t going to be easy? The next bit.

A sheer drop to the ground below, where the path continued.

“Totally going to break something...” He murmured, eyeing the drop. Carefully lowering himself down on the ledge, he swung both legs over into oblivion.

He had to get out.

He had to find Noct, Iggy and Gladio.

Closing his eyes and taking a deep breath, Prompto let himself drop from the ledge.

Luckily, years of athletics training from high school reminded him to tuck himself into a roll the moment he hit the ground below, but the sickening crack of his shoulder and sudden searing pain that wracked his body was enough to know that no amount of rolling had saved him a broken limb.

Crying out and clutching his uninjured arm to his shoulder, Prompto’s chest heaved against the flowing agony, both eyes tightly closed as he bit down hard on his lip – something in the back of his mind warning him about noise and daemons. Any attempt to open his eyes again was met with black spots on his vision and world spinning sickeningly out of control, to the point where he wasn’t even sure which way was up.

He wasn’t sure how long he was led like that, clutching his arm as his groans echoed through the hallway and into the new room beyond. He wasn’t sure how long his head throbbed and his eyes watered against the agony.

Eventually,

Eventually he knew he had to move. It sucked, it sucked really bad, but there weren’t any curatives in this damn place and his best chance was getting out and finding the others. They’d have curatives. Curatives and food.

And water.

And somewhere soft to sleep.

Another few minutes passed before Prompto finally pulled himself back to his feet, left arm hanging limply at his side as he made his way forward into the new room.

More moving platforms, wonderful.

He tripped at the end of it; just about steadying himself as he stumbled onto the next bit of path.

Ducking under some more spikes, he cursed his instability and was forced to rest a hand against the wall.

“Just gotta’-.. Keep on, keeping on..” He mused, tone void of the intended humour.

Three more sets of spikes had him running through them then cursing as the movement jostled his arm, but still, so far so good. Well, as good as could be expected with a broken arm. Prompto couldn’t really recall moving through the following room, moving the cage so that the ball from before dropped across, nor climbing – painfully – up onto the statue to press the button to finally open the first door.

The.

First.

Door.

This place was going to be the death of him.

Standing ahead of it and watching as the large golden door collapsed downwards into the floor, he felt the room tip to the side.

Or, no. No, he tipped to the side. There was another smack as his head hit the floor, and the blond finally let himself be taken by the darkness around him, letting out a few groans as his vision swam and darkened. What he failed to notice in that last moment was his phone buzzing in his pocket.

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought! <3 Comments make me want to continueee ;w; ;D


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